Tokugawa

The Tokugawa were a powerful daimyo family of Japan that was based in Mikawa Province. From 1603 to 1867, members of the clan ruled Japan under the "Tokugawa Shogunate", with Ieyasu Tokugawa becoming the clan's first shogun after defeating the rival Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600.

History
The Tokugawa clan was descended from Emperor Seiwa and was a branch of the powerful Minamoto family by the Nitta clan, making it a prestigious family. The Tokugawa clan was founded in 1567 when Takechiyo Matsudaira, a scion of the Matsudaira clan, formed his own clan in Mikawa Province, splitting from the original Matsudaira family. The Tokugawa clan served as vassals of the Oda from 1567 until Nobunaga Oda's death in 1582, and the Tokugawa lost a power struggle with the rival Toyotomi clan at the Battle of Komaki-Nagakute in 1584, resulting in Ieyasu Tokugawa being forced to serve Hideyoshi Toyotomi as a vassal. Ieyasu Tokugawa would never forget this rivalry, and he did not take part in Toyotomi's Japanese invasions of Korea during the 1590s. In 1600, after Hideyoshi's death, the Tokugawa seized power from his military allies at the Battle of Sekigahara, and Ieyasu became the new regent for Hideyoshi's son, the infant shogun Hideyori Toyotomi. In 1603, Ieyasu was made the new Shogun, and the Tokugawa crushed any opposition to the new Tokugawa Shogunate at the Siege of Osaka in 1615. The Tokugawa would rule Japan until 1867, when Emperor Meiji's loyalists overthrew the Shogunate during the Boshin War. In 1871, the clan was abolished with the han system.